The first roadmap to stop greenhouse gas emissions was approved in Thailand today. The report lays out plans to avert a disastrous spike in global temperatures. KPBS environmental reporter Ed Joyce tells us one of the recommendations is to plant more trees.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC report, says the world must make significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. It suggests using renewable fuels instead of oil and coal. The report also says reducing deforestation and increasing forest areas would help reverse the effects of global warming. John Stuart is a professor of forestry at Humboldt State University. He says trees are an effective way to remove carbon.
Stuart : Yes, not only to absorb them but to store them. Trees as you know are long-lived perennial plants. And they can, particularly large trees like Redwood and Ponderosa Pine and other trees we have in California are very efficient at storing carbon over long periods of time.
The non-profit Forest Foundation says a restored acre of land could absorb and store 200 tons of carbon dioxide -- an amount equal to absorbing carbon emitted by 35 minivans every year. The group says the federal government has replanted less than one percent of the 130,000 acres of national forest land burned in California four years ago.
Ed Joyce, KPBS News.
( Photo Caption : Following the 1992 Cleveland Fire in the Eldorado National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service replanted some lands, and left some untouched in an experimental ecoplot. Today, 15-foot-tall trees stand on replanted lands, but brush dominates the untreated ecoplot. For scale, note the 5-foot-high land survey sign in the photo for scale. U.S. Forest Service .)
